Where the jobs are for mature workers

Age bias still exists, but attitudes may be changing

Editor’s Note: This is the first installment of a new weekly column, “Working Retirement,” in which MarketWatch writer Andrea Coombes focuses on the money and lifestyle questions emerging from the latest retirement trend: working longer.

SAN FRANCISCO—Mature workers don’t have it easy in today’s labor market, but the inexorable force of demographics may be helping to loosen ageism’s hold on U.S. employers, opening up opportunities in more industries for job seekers whose faces reflect some years of experience.

While health-care companies and universities often show up on lists of “age-friendly” employers because of their efforts to attract and retain a graying workforce, the sheer number of older people nationwide may help erase age boundaries in other industries, too.

“The problem of age bias has not been solved yet, but attitudes do seem to be improving,” said Sara Rix, senior strategic policy adviser with AARP’s Public Policy Institute.

Employers may have no choice but to change. The number of workers age 55 and up grew by 3.5 million from September 2009 to September 2012—the lion’s share of the gain of 4.2 million for all workers 16 and older, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By 2020, 25% of the labor force will be 55 and older, up from 20% in 2010 and 12% in 1990.

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Two factors help explain those figures. One is demographics. In the past three years through July, 86% of the population growth among people aged 25 to 69 was driven by people aged 55 to 69, said Richard Johnson, director of the program on retirement policy at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research group. That’s not surprising, given that baby boomers—some 78 million people born between 1946 and 1964—started hitting age 55 in 2001.

Another factor: Older workers are getting hired more often than you might think. In one recent survey, hiring managers were three times as likely to say they’d hire a worker aged 50 or older than a 20-something, according to a survey of 501 hiring managers by Adecco Staffing, an employment and recruiting agency. Read the Adecco survey on hiring.

It’s not as though older workers have it easy. One stark sign of their struggles: In 2011, jobless workers 55 and older faced a median of 35 weeks unemployment, versus 26 weeks for those aged 25 to 54, according to a report in May from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

“There’s no question that things are better and the acceptance of so-called mature workers is improving, but you can’t get around the fact that it does take longer, typically, for people over 50 to get re-employed,” said Tim Driver, chief executive of Boston-based RetirementJobs.com, a career site and advocacy group for mature workers.

For older job seekers, the following industries are likelier to be welcoming.

Financial Services

“Tax preparer” was one of 25 occupations with the highest percentage of workers age 55-plus in 2010—an estimated 40% of workers in that field are 55 or older, according to the Urban Institute. (Also on the list: bus drivers, chief executives, psychologists, librarians and real-estate appraisers.)

Fidelity Investments, Vanguard and Wells Fargo are among the companies certified “age friendly” by RetirementJobs.com, and AARP’s most recent biennial list of best employers for workers over age 50 includes seven financial-services firms, including Pennsylvania-based S&T Bank and Nevada Federal Credit Union.

“Banks and insurance companies have been forward-thinking about the need to think about the aging workforce and what that means for their organizations,” said Jacquelyn B. James, director of research at Boston College’s Sloan Center on Aging and Work.

For example, Principal Financial offers a “Happy Returns” program to enable retirees to return to work without interrupting their benefits.

Education

Another common sight on “age friendly” lists: educational institutions, from elementary schools such as Brevard Public Schools in Florida to universities, including Cornell and George Mason, all on AARP’s list.

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